


Walk the Line

by YunJun



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Academy Era, Anorexia, Binging, Bulimia, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Eating Disorders, Math, Purging, Starving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:47:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25087135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YunJun/pseuds/YunJun
Summary: What is eating Takizawa Seidou?Or rather, what is Takizawa Seidou eating?(Sometimes the answer is nothing, sometimes it is everything)
Kudos: 28





	1. lunchbox friends

**Author's Note:**

> Hi I hate myself and project all of my issues onto fictional characters hahaha :))))
> 
> Trigger Warning for graphic descriptions of eating disorders, binging/purging, starving etc.  
> These are a lot my own experiences, except that I don't purge as much as I makeit seem, because my gag reflex is nonexistent.

Click click click, goes Akira’s chopsticks delicately against the lunchbox as she picks around until finally, fucking finally she fishes up a slice of pickled carrot. Seidou watches her from his own desk across the classroom, trying not to make it obvious that he is staring. How many minutes has passed? Lunch break started at 12, but when students were rushing off to the caftéria he and Akira were the ones who stayed behind. He had tried to read a bit of the section they’d go over next lesson but the letters kept slipping from their place of the page to be a jumbled mess. Trying and failing he had given up and resigned to eating lunch. He threw an anxious glance at Akira, feeling embarrassed. Threw another glance at the clock (it was only 12:07? Lunch didn’t end until 12:55) and then started poking around his food with his chopsticks.

Seidou had tried to eat slowly. Have some fucking restraint, some god damn patience. But as always it was gone too quickly, having slid down his throat without him even chewing properly half the time. During the lecture he had been dying to eat, the thought brewing a cocktail of dread and excitement in his empty stomach. But now that it was all said and done it was so anticlimactic (like usual). When he looked at the clock it had been 12:15. Eight minutes. He pushed the taste of regret away and tried to concentrate on reading.

It was only way after he had finished that Akira put away her book and started eating. She does it so casually and absentmindedly, like food isn't even really on her mind even when she is eating. Seidou feels a little envious (but then again he alway is, isn’t he?).

He tries to not pay her any attention, but the minutes ticks by and he counts them obsessively. Five, six, seven, eight, hurries her on with more and more fervor quietly inside his head, and then it has been nine minutes and at that point she’s won the competition she doesn’t even know she is competing in and Seidou finally stops counting the minutes and refocuses his attention on being productive. He props an arm up on the table and leans his head into the open palm, eyes skimming the page.

After a while the sound of a chair scraping against the floor gets his attention, and he looks up annoyed. After all he had just gotten into a focused state. Didn’t people realise how hard it was for him to shut his mind up long enough to study properly?

Akira gets up from her seat and walk across the classroom, holding her lunchbox close to her chest. She walk with quick, confident strides that makes her skirt flare just slightly. Seidou can feel his face heat up, and he looks away. But despite himself he glances up again, just in time to see Akira discard the leftovers from lunch in the trash bin. Seidou tries not to think about it too much, but a pang of irritation flares up inside of him anyhow.

His own lunch sits uncomfortably in his stomach, reminds him that he certainly didn’t have any leftovers. Ate way too quickly too. Akira would never, he thinks, and it doesn’t matter that Akira probably had dinner the night before and breakfast this morning, it still feels like it is a testament to how he lacks all of the control that she so casually displays. It is so petty of him to think this way, and so ridiculous. But knowing that makes no difference, logic never seems to matter to the irritable voice on the forefront of Seidou’s mind.

Akira looks up, and for a second their gazes meet and Seidou can only think about how her violet eyes are really pretty and how he wishes he didn’t eat anything because thinking about Akira too much makes him feel sort of sick and it is even worse because she just caught him staring at her didn’t she oh god what a creep she must think he is why did he always manage to embarrass himself in front of her?! His thoughts are like paper airplanes fluttering around helplessly in the violent hurricane of his mind, and every time he catches one to examine a little closer there are a million more of them demanding his attention.

“‘scuse me…” he mutters as he rushes past her, out in the hallway. There are some people loitering around in the hallway, waiting for the next lesson to start so Seidou slows down to a speedy walk, looking down at the floor as he passes them. He doesn't know where he is going (that is a lie. He tries very hard not to acknowledge where his feet are taking him, but he knows where he will end up nonetheless. A part of him thinks he really shouldn’t do this, and another part of him agrees, says ‘good point’ and then ‘but you will do it anyways, right?’)

It feels like he is watching the rest of world through a glass pane. Everything is muted, and nothing feels entirely real. He wants to feel sad and angry and disgusted, because that is the emotions that this should evoke, and while yes he does feel all of that he also feels a quiet excitement, a sense of relief at the promise of not having to put up with the overwhelming regret all afternoon.

The bathroom is empty, but just in case he checks the doors to all of the stalls until he is absolutely sure that he is alone before he picks the one furthest from the door and locks himself inside the tiny cubicle. His hair is fairly short but Seidou has learned the hard way that his bangs still fall in his face if he leans forward, so he fishes for the hair clip that he keeps in his pocket.

It gets easier. But it never gets easy. It is always messy, and he always cries and Seidou doesn’t want to cry in school but he can’t stop the tears as he gags and coughs, hunched over the toilet. It only makes him hate himself even more and push even harsher, trying to purge the thoughts along with his lunch.

When it is over he rests his sweaty forehead against the porcelain, breathing heavily. All of the guilty and shame that he didn’t have the sense to feel moments overtakes him along with exhaustion (Really Seidou; in the academy during lunch?! At home was one thing, but this was just too much. Why was he being so stupid and reckless? This wasn’t like him at all.)


	2. the first time (is free)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things come slowly, creeping up on you like a shadow in the night. Other things has a clear beginning, a moment in time you can point at and go “there, this is how it started.”
> 
> He will never forget the tipping point.

It was the stress. Seidou took pages upon pages of notes until his notebooks were all filled to the brim and loose papers were falling out. Then he got more notebooks. Took notes until his wrists were aching, read the chapters over and over and made flashcards and studied for hours (and it didn’t matter if it left him with no freetime; that just made it much easier to ignore the fact that he didn’t have any close friends or much of any hobbies outside of studying).

But it didn’t matter how hard he tried. Perhaps it was never meant to be, and Seidou was never meant to be the best. Perhaps he should have been happy with what he got, but that was the problem. Seidou wasn’t happy. No, there was a seemingly endless pit of self hatred inside of him, and every day he struggled to appease his own too-high expectations, and being ‘good enough’ just wasn't good enough. When it all came down to it he was so damn tired of trying, and trying, and trying, and never ever feeling good enough no matter what.

It all built inside of him, like boiling water steadily rising inside of a pot. A part of him had known that eventually it would boil over- but the bigger part of his mind had denied it, pushed the facts away as if that would make anything better. It was so much easier to ignore the pressure surging in his chest, because the alternative? Seidou didn’t even know where to begin.

He his first meltdown the day before an exam, though ‘day’ might be a stretch. Seidou had been staying up to cram and before he realised it, it was past midnight. He doesn't go to sleep right away. Instead he forces himself to finish reading, painfully staking through line after line until he has read an entire paragraph, then repeats until he has read the entire chapter.

His limbs are stiff when he gets up from his desk. Seidou tries to be quiet when he makes his way into the hallway, even if he doubts that it matters much. His family are all heavy sleepers. He is creeping along in the dark until he gets past his sister’s bedroom, and his parent’s shared bedroom, and then he reaches the kitchen and turn on the dimmed lights on the dinner table. He should brush his teeth like a responsible person and go to bed before he was stuck with five hours of sleep- Seidou knows from experience what kind of headache that brings on. But when the lights turn on and illuminates the kitchen with its various foodstuffs on the counter it makes him remember that dinner was several hours ago, and he hasn’t had anything since then. A midnight snack never killed anyone, so Seidou gets a butter knife and the jar of nutella and two slices of bread.

He eats them standing up, leaning against the counter with one hip and staring into the void. It’s nice, comforting even. The nutella is rich and sweet, the bread is fluffy, and for a second Seidou feels as if he is entirely alone in the world and all of his worries has ceased to exist. Then the toast is gone, and he is alone in the kitchen still but uncannily aware of the people sleeping soundly down the hallway and he needs to brush his teeth because he has finished eating but he is so goddamn tired. So he pops two more bread slices in the toaster, just so that he doesn’t have to leave his little bubble yet.

While waiting for the bread to toast Seidou lets his gaze wander over the kitchen cabinets. It was only minutes, but to him it felt like an eternity. He wanted to eat something now, right this second, and he honestly couldn’t care less what it was. Abandoning his spot by the toaster Seidou made his way over to the counter, grabbing the box of cereal that was standing there. ‘Choco-something’

Without further discretion he grabbed a fistful of sugary cereal and unceremoniously shoved it into his mouth. It was crunchy and way too sugary and he didn’t even really like it but he ate another fistful, and then another and before he knew it he was pouring the cereal straight from the box into his mouth. The toast had popped up, and the kitchen smelled of roasted bread and Seidou put the chocolate spread on both slices of bread then shoved them into his mouth. The taste didn’t even register anymore as it slid down his throat and Seidou wasted no time chewing, just ate feverishly. He wasn’t even hungry anymore.

His stomach hurt, and he knew that he should stop but he couldn’t. There was an invisible force beckoning him to eat, to eat and eat until it was impossible, to keep shoving food into his mouth as if it would fill the void inside of him if he just ate enough.

The butter knife was switched out for a spoon, and Seidou sat down on the cold kitchen floor with his back to the cabinets, emptying the nutella jar of its contents. After a couple of spoonfuls the sugary taste made him feel sick, so he put it down beside him. Something else,,, something else that he could force himself to consume. There is panic and nausea clawing its way up his insides, but he doesnt think about it, doesn’t care. He tore off bite-sized pieces of bread and ate straight from the package until the entire loaf was gone. Seidou knew what an absolute wreck he was right then and he hated himself for it. The thought only made him want to eat more, to try and push it away. He wanted to cry but no tears come, so he ate ice cream from the freezer with a nutella-sticky spoon instead.

When he comes down from his high he is sitting on the floor surrounded by packages of varying degree of emptiness and there is cereal spilled all over the floor and there are crumbs and stains on his clothes and a heavy, heavy feeling in his stomach and he can remember what just happened but it still doesn’t quite register to him because there is no way he would do that right? Seidou is not this kind of person. So messy, so greedy, so, so, so out of control.

But the the evidence is stacked against him, and it piles up all around him. Seidou’s stomach began to lurch in protest as he looked around, aghast at the mess he had made. He knew better. Should know better.

With a furiously beating heart he began to gather up all of the packages and containers. Fist the ones that went into the freezer, then the empty ones which he threw away and then finally the ones he could haphazardly shove back into the cabinets- too tired to find their proper places. When he was done the nauseous feeling had only gotten worse. Seidou couldn’t tell if it was the physical or the psychological aspect that weighed the heaviest on him, but he was feeling absolutely sickened.

His limbs might as well have been made of stone for as heavy as they were as he stumbled through the kitchen towards the bathroom. He had been meaning to brush his teeth, but the minty smell of toothpaste makes Seidou gag lightly. He puts down the toothbrush on the edge of the sink, and turns on the tap full force instead. The water is cool against his skin, and even if it splashes onto his shirt he doesn’t pay that any mind. Just cups his hands and gathers more water to cover his sweat-sticky face once again.

After two more handfuls of water Seidou looks up, regarding himself in the mirror. His bangs are sticking to his forehead, and his shirt is sporting a wet patch from where water has dripped from his chin, and some which had splashed from the sink. Then he doesn’t want to look anymore, doesn’t want to see his own face with an expression of disappointment and exhaustion, so he lets his gaze wander past himself and over the rest of the bathroom. Shower, towel rack, a bit of wall, and the toilet.

He had been meaning to brush his teeth. But when he sees the toilet reflect back at him in the mirror another wave of nausea hits him, and he swallows thickly, trying to push it down. For a moment he is absolutely positive that he is going to vomit on the carpet. But when he is kneeling over the toilet a few seconds later the nausea has eased up a little bit. It should be a good thing. But Seidou can’t help feeling just a smidgen of disappointment. The food sits heavy in his stomach, fills him up until he feels like a stuffed toy about to rip at the seams. When he breathes it is as if it pushes all the way up to his ribs and constricts his lungs.

He feels sick, nauseous, horrible. But not enough so to throw up, apparently. And yet he wants nothing more than to get it out. His entire body is vibrating with energy, the horrible kind of energy that is way too much, hyper-awareness of his surroundings pressing onto all of his senses. 

He knows what is going on. He knows what he is doing when he pulls up the sleeve of his left arm to the elbow and grips the porcelain with his right hand. But it doesn’t feel like he he is really doing this. The seriousness of the situation, all of those feeling of horror and sadness and disgust that he would feel if this was anyone but himself just refuses to register in his mind.

I can stop. I should stop. I’m not seriously doing this, am I?

Seidou looks at his fingers, takes a deep breath, and sticks them down his throat. At first nothing happens except for a slight uncomfortable feeling. Then he goes just a little deeper, and his fingers hits the back of his throat and evokes a scratching kind of pain. He waits a few seconds, and it becomes borderline impossible to breath as the scratching becomes burning pain and his muscles convulse around his fingers. Seidou wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen, but nothing's coming up and it hurts and maybe he just sucks at this and he can’t get any air and he is a little dizzy so maybe he should just give up and this is stupid-

Then something shifts in his throat like opening a cap and bile rises in his throat, pushes past his fingers. Seidou can feel the acidic sludge in his mouth. It tastes vaguely like chocolate that had gone bad, mixed up with coca cola when you sneeze and it goes up through your nose. It felt a bit like that, too.

It’s ugly, it’s disgusting, and it burns painfully in his throat, but there is a sense of relief that comes with it. Seidou keeps going until nothing comes up anymore and he is spitting watery goo. Only then does he pull out his hand completely, holding it up in front of his face.

It is with morbid fascination he regards his fingers. The index and middle finger is covered in spit and small bits of food. He wriggles them, watching the saliva gleam in the overhead light. His throat is sore and so are his knuckles; viciously red teeth marks are splayed over the skin. It feels as if his body has been scrubbed raw, as if a layer skin has peeled away and left Seidou vulnerable, sore, and exhausted.

He flushes the toilet, watching vomit swirl down and away. Leans his head against the wall and contemplated falling asleep right there. But then he gets up, brushes his teeth, shuffles into his room to change into pyjamas. He shoves the filthy shirt under his bed, and tries to go to sleep.

It was the stress. It wasn’t that serious. Ok Seidou had fucked up,he knew that. But it was a one-time thing. He might have a problem, but it wasn’t a problem-problem. Not serious enough (never serious enough). And he would continue to tell himself that; even when it wasn’t a one time thing anymore, even when the binges came more and more frequently, even when he started purging when he wasn’t binging.

(Even when every time he ate became a binge in Seidou’s point of view).


	3. skin and bones (all alone)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seidou hated everything. But most of all, he hated himself.

Every since he can remember there has been a void in Seidou’s heart. He struggles to explain it, much less explain why. Why, why why? He doesn't know that himself. There is an almost artistic violence over these unexplainable, allconsuming thoughts that leave him shaking with silent screams and a spinning head. He feels cut off from reality, detached from his body, on the verge of so so much, but nothing is ever quite enough.

He fills the void (or tries to) with food. Focuses on eating, so that he doesn’t have to think about anything else. He eats and eats until there is nothing left to eat. But the void in his heart is bigger than his stomach and in the end he is still miserable, now hurting both physically and mentally. Eating becomes associated with pain; bitter tears and stomach aches and nausea and headaches and feeling like he is going to break and headaches and sticky fingers and crumbs and guilt. So Seidou did what he thought was best. If eating was painful, then he would just not eat. And so he starved. But starving just made him think even more about food, and he would obsess over it until it became too much, he couldn’t bear it and he caved. He broke down, and ate, and continued to eat until he finally hated himself enough to stop.

Laying in bed at night, with tears building in his eyes and feeling stuffed to such an agonising degree and feeling disgusted with himself he promised himself that tomorrow was the day, tomorrow he would wake up and skip breakfast and tomorrow was the beginning of the rest of his life. It never was. He caved after a couple of hours, and he ate something and that made him feel so overwhelmingly guilty so he had to eat more to repress the thoughts and he ate and ate and ate until he was back to square one. No, he had passed square one and landed on square minus one, and no food would ever be enough to pull him out of it.

Calories was something that came later. They had seemed like the perfect solution at the time. If Sediou just ate the amount that he was supposed to then he could eat “normally” and wouldn’t have to think so much. He could feel in control. There was just one problem.

His binges were incredibly calorific. But it was the total that mattered, right? So he just had to eat less the next day, or the next few days until the weekly total was down to a satisfying amount. And just like that Seidou was back to square minus one eating all of his feeling and starving out all of his emotions, only now he had an additional obsession with numbers that consumed his entire free time. Spending all day making calculations in his head for a sandwich he wasn’t even going to eat, then at night sobbing while punching in the entire ice cream cake he just ate in one of his many calorie-counting apps.

And then one night when the nausea and disgust with himself was just too much to bear Seidou added purging to the vicious cycle. Binge, purge, starve, binge purge starve. And no one noticed because he was a fucking good liar. Some days he wished someone would take notice. But nobody did. The voice in his head told him that it was because no one cared, and it made him so angry that one one could see. He wanted to be saved, but he continued to hide the fact that needed saving.

Seidou hated everything. But most of all, he hated himself.


	4. red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’m probably like, actually going to give this a plot now. So yeah. Hahah,,,
> 
> TW for calories

Fuck… fuck! Never again. Fuck. Seidou’s everything hurt. He felt nauseous. He pulled the hair from his forehead, clipped the bangs away and stared at himself in the mirror. The thin sheen of sweat covering his face, his hand shaking where it gripped the mirror’s edge. Never again was he going to binge. He wouldn’t eat anything. Nothing at all, and it was all going to be fine.

He felt even more nauseous, but forced it down. Told himself to calm down, to relax but the food pushed on with its overwhelming presence, even as all of it was eaten. He shouldn’t have done that. This was how it always went. Regret, regret, regret. It came in waves, sometimes roaring like a tsunami and making him want to grab his flesh and pull it off in chunks, sometimes it came as a quiet knife cutting away at his lungs until he couldn’t breath. But always regret.

For eating, yes. But not only. It wasn’t just about food, but by god would it have been easier if it was. It was everything that the food represented; strength, control, a moral high ground that Seidou sat comfortably at as long as his stomach remained empty. And then he gave up, and gave in, and suddenly he was weakness and chaos and cast down from his throne, the voices in his mind turning their back on him. The hunger pains were so much better than the post-binge pains, because at least the hunger pains meant he was doing something right.

“Never again,” Seidou repeated, staring sternly at the figure in the mirror to really drive home the point. Never again. He aches with the need to do 100 sit-ups, or 100 push-ups, or anything just to move, to workout. But sleep. It is already too late for him to get 8 hours, and without proper sleep his metabolism will slow right? Exercise, sleep, exercise, sleep, exercise, sleep. It spins and spins around in Seidou’s head until he finally lies down in bed, willing himself to be absolutely still. Breath calmly. In and out. In and out.

H

Seidou wakes up to his alarm, pulling him out of uneasy sleep. He’s tired but that alone has never been enough reason to stay in bed. If he slept as much as he wanted to, Seidou suspects he’d sleep all day, perpetual exhaustion overing him like a second blanket. No instead he gets up, familiar tiredness weighing him down like a well-worn but heavy jacket; he moves by routine, no energy left for anything but the absolutely necessary.

He can smell it all the way from upstairs. The smell of food cooking, and it smells amazing. Is it eggs over rice? That is usually what his mom made in the mornings. At least two hundred and twenty for the rice, and then seventy-something for an egg, which was almost one hundred so two eggs and that was four-hundred and twenty and then he wouldn’t know if she added something else so let’s call it at least five hundred and that is way too much! One egg? Still not good, but ok if he didn’t do lunch; but he needed to get through the day maybe he could eat a fruit for lunch? No, new plan, skip breakfast and buy convenience-store onigiri for lunch. The tuna one was two-hundred-and-three, so he could have two. But maybe just one? He did binge yesterday. He should just skip both breakfast and lunch.

His stomach, the traitor, made a sound of protest at the thought of not eating anything for the whole day. Seidou’s thoughts continued to race as he made his way down the stairs. Numbers and flavours running through his head as he bargained with himself, trying to come to a decision before he reached the kitchen downstairs.

Toast! One slice of plain toast, and a cup of coffee. He would allow breakfast so that he didn’t binge, but not too much.

“Morning,” he greets his mum, who is already sitting at the table when Seidou finally comes downstairs. He declines the already-made breakfast that is sitting by his chair, saying he is in too much of a hurry and he’ll just buy something and then he grabs a slice of toast and practically runs out the door, not wanting to stay and see how she’ll react. By now his mom should be used to his food-antics, or whatever you’d call it. Seidou still feels guilt and shame every time he refuses her meals.

After half of the toast he is feeling a bit nauseous. Seidou knows that he’ll eat it anyway, if he got the opportunity. So he throws it into the oncoming traffic, watches the half slice of bread get run over by a bus mournfully. At least he won’t eat it, this way. Half a slice, that is ninety divided by two; forty-five. Round it up to fifty just to be sure. If he has an onigiri for lunch he’ll be at two-hundred-fifty-three. That’s under three hundred, so that sounds like a plan. He’ll buy it during lunch, just so that he won’t get tempted to eat it too early.

With that, Seidou is on his way to the academy. Everything was fine. He almost in control.


	5. sinking is better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> relapse veeeeeent. the usual tws apply.

Standing in the grocery store aisle brought on a sense of satisfaction mixed with morbid curiosity. It wasn’t even the right aisle for what Seidou was intending to buy, but here he was turning packages around to eyeball the nutrition labels of things that he was never going to eat. Five hundred and forty calories for a hundred grams, and the package was,, let's see,,, one hundred and seventy five grams. Just the number made him blanch, but something inside of him protested putting it away so he stood there and tried to do the mental math without looking crazy. He had almost got it when a voice startled him from behind.

“Takizawa,” Seidou nearly stumbles over himself in his rush to turn around so he comes face to face with one of his classmates. He feels unreasonably guilty, like he has been caught doing something he absolutely shouldn’t when in reality all he has been doing is buying lunch. And staring at packages for ages. God, did she see him? How long has she been here?

“Oh hello Kobayashi,” he responds, trying for a cool tone. He can practically feel the words clumsily tripping out of him. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

“It is the store closest to the academy after all,” Haruka giggles lightly, then goes quiet. “Mmh, yes. It is,,,” Seidou feels the wrongness in the air. Wants to get out of here. Not because he dislikes the store, hell, he loves the store, but being seen here is embarrassing. Logically that makes no sense, but that is exactly how he feels. He doesn’t want people to know that he eats (and how fucking weird isn’t that thought?).

Having stood here for ages he can’t just leave though. So he snatches a package of monaka from the shelf. He’ll just discard it out of sight. “It’s been nice. I have got to go now, see you later!” And Seidou runs with his tails between his legs. Takes long strides through one, two, the, and four aisles before he finally relaxes.

He looks down at the package. These are actually really good. Seidou can practically feel crisp wafers break under his teeth, and can taste the sweet red bean jam between them. He flips it over and looks at the nutritional information. one hundred and fifteen per piece, and there are four pieces. That makes it, four hundred plus sixty is four hundred and sixty. Technically he could eat these, and still come up around five hundred for the day. Hell, if he wanted to he could buy a small cup of ice cream and dip them in it and still be under a thousand.

But none of that is particularly healthy. He should buy some fruit, or go and get the onigiri he had planned. But the package weighs heavy in his hand. Fuck health. Calories are all that matters. But even so, lower is better. He could buy a zero calorie energy drink (they were about twenty calories per 500 ml though, so not exactly zero). Or he could buy the monaka. But if he was going to buy sweets he should purge it. Might as well buy more things he wanted to eat, if he was going to purge.

Externally Seidou was shopping for groceries, looking at the products on the shelf in front of him. Internally, he was bargaining with himself on how to best starve while staring emptily at the soy sauce. He would be too tired to focus on school if he binged, so he wouldn't. Because his… habits wouldn’t affect his performance in school. Because he had control of it; if not the binging, then the purging and restriction.

His body moved mechanically, grabbing an energy drink, paying for it, opening the can and tasting the horrid carbonated mix. After drinking it all, he didn’t even feel particularly hungry anymore. Sixty five calories, total. It was a bit too low even for his liking but he had binged yesterday, and if anything he should have had zero to make up for it. But right now he felt good. Knew the headaches would start come afternoon, but right now he felt good.

And that turned out to be a fucking lie. Seidou did not feel good. He had a headache that felt like splitting his head appart, and hunger pangs that made his stomach hurt. It had just been three hours since “lunch”, and he was already wanting to die again. The professor babbled on about something that he couldn't concentrate on, while he discreetly browsed twitter. Looking at the tags for bulimia. Recognising foods he knew he could find in his own convenience store, and it made him hungrier. He knew that the people online would puke everything they ate afterwards and that alone should have been enough to turn him off of food, but it wasn’t helping. He was still way too hungry.

When the lesson ends Seidou shoots up from his seat at lightning speeds. He rushed out, not even bothering with the jacket left in his locker. The store was only a minute away. He had already planned out what to buy. Or at least part of it, and then once he got going he would just grab anything that looked good.

The funny thing with hunger is that once you repress it for a while, your appetite starts to disappear. And maybe that should be a good sign. But it left Seidou feeling so empty, so tired, making him desperate to feel again even if it was the all consuming guilt that he felt. He got the monaka. Then, just to be safe he got another box of them. And he should get some chocolate bars. Oh, those were on clearance. He didn't actually like coconut, but it wasn’t like that really mattered. No, his finances were fucked either way, so he got the five for fourhundred yen deal and then grabbed a box of kitkat. Should he get chips? No. They were good, but they were hell to purge. He wanted some donuts though. Not the pre-packaged dry ones, but the fresh store baked ones filled with caramel or cream or jam.

A heavy clump of guilt and wrong, wrong, wrong twists around itself in his chest at the check out as Seidou sees his total. It doesn’t stop him. He takes the self checkout because he can’t stand an employee seeing him buy all of this crap. Even if he logically knows they have no way of knowing that he scarf down all of it in under half an hour by himself in the dark, he still feels the shame weighing heavy on him, tinting his world.

By now most of the students should have disappeared from the academy grounds. He can’t go home like this, so he starts trudging back to the mostly-empty school. There is an empty bathroom on the second floor that no one uses ever, except for smoking. Seidou takes off his suit jacket and lays it on the dirty floor, piles up the food in front of him and takes a second to just watch it all. It is like an extremely sad picnic, and the led lights overhead that keep flickering aren’t helping. He sighs.

“Itadakimasu.”


	6. people i don't like

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akira watches him go with a worried look. There was a voice in the back of her head telling her she was missing something, something vital.

For the most part, she liked being the class representative. It made her feel responsible, as if her actions and efforts actually mattered. It made her feel as if she was doing something right, making her way in life and making her parents proud. So yes, even the infamously tedious after-class check up on the school to make sure no one skipped out on cleaning duties Akira accepted with grace.

It was a routine check they did every day, and fateful to its name there usually was nothing special happening. Today, not so much. As she walks past the abandones second floor bathroom she hears gagging and coughing from inside. Akira contemplates taking a look inside. She assumes it is someone who has been smoking there again, but her intuition tells her that there is something more to it. So she pushed the door open and stepped in, wrinkling her nose at the mess. The academy was generally clean, but since there were mostly delinquents hanging around this place it was still hopelessly filthy compared to the rest.

Candy wrappers and food packages littered the floor along with cigarette butts, and there was ashes and writing clinging to the wall. By now Akira had recognized the sounds as someone throwing up, and her brow furrowed. Some idiot had come to school while sick, apparently. She knocks at the stall door, three quick rapps and suddenly the other person goes quiet. Akira leans against the door, listening. A few more wet coughs, and then some heavy breaths. After a minute the toilet flushes. Akira steps back and the stall reluctantly opens.

She had a speech prepared, about hygiene and staying home when you feel sick and all that. But when she sees who it is she does a double take and the words slip from her mind. “Takizawa? That was you puking your guts out?”

Then she sees him. Really sees him. And he looks goddamn horrible. His eyes are red rimmed, with bags under them. He is pale, hands shaking as he holds onto the door to steady himself. Some stray strands of hair cling to his sweaty forehead,and the rest of his hair is messily tied back. Akira is usually prepared, but this is a situation she had never imagined, she doesn’t know what to say or do.

“You look horrible, Takizawa,” she blurts out, regretting it the moment his face twists into annoyance with a hint of fear.

“Jeez, thanks for the vote of confidence Mado. I’m fine. Must’ve been something in my lunch,” Takizawa grumbles, tugging at the ahirtie, freeing his bangs. They fall down framing his face, and he brushes them like he is trying to hide behind them.

“You should go home, and stay home for another day just in case.” Akira looks away.

“I’m fine Mado…” Takizawa replaces the grim look on his face with his trademark frown. “Some of us actually have to attend class regularly to get high marks,” and with that he pushes past her, stumbling slightly as he makes his way out. Akira watches him go with a worried look. There was a voice in the back of her head telling her she was missing something, something vital.


End file.
